City of New York was a British built passenger liner of the Inman Line that was designed to be the largest and fastest liner on the Atlantic. When she entered service in August 1888, she was the first twin screw express liner and while she did not achieve the westbound Blue Riband, she ultimately held the eastbound record from August 1892 to May 1893 at a speed of 20.11 knots. City of New York and her sister City of Paris are considered especially beautiful ships and throughout their careers were rivals to the White Star Teutonic and Majestic. In February 1893, the Inman Line was merged into the American Line and by act of Congress, the renamed New York was transferred to the US flag. Beginning in the mid-1890s, New York and Paris were paired with St Louis and St Paul to form one of the premier Atlantic services. New York continued with the American Line until 1920 and was broken for scrap in 1923. She served the US Navy as Harvard during the Spanish–American War and Plattsburg in World War I. She is also remembered for nearly colliding with the RMS Titanic as the latter ship began her doomed maiden voyage in 1912. Development and design When International Navigation Company purchased the Inman Line in 1886, the fleet needed new units to revive the line's fortunes against the Cunard Line and White Star. International Navigation's vice president, Clement Griscom, immediately sailed to Liverpool with a commitment from the Pennsylvania Railroad to provide $2 million in capital towards the building of a new ship. Shipbuilders in Scotland were experiencing a recession at the time and offered to deliver two ships at $1,850,000 per unit. The Pennsylvania Railroad agreed to underwrite the additional capital and the contracts were signed for City of New York and her sister, City of Paris. When designing the new liners, the lessons of the City of Rome fiasco were recalled. The original design called two ships of that were only slightly bigger than City of Rome, but with steel hulls and twin screws. Because powerful single screw liners were prone to shaft failure, they carried extensive rigging for sails. Twin screws rendered this extra rigging unnecessary. Starting in 1866, a few twin screw ships sailed the Atlantic, but the new Inman ships were the first twin screw express liners. While size was increased by almost 25%